2008 Town & Country REN iPod/iPhone audio interface
 

I am new to a 2008 Town & Country with the REN touchscreen A/V system and navigation. It has a USB port on the touchscreen bezel and the Uconnect Bluetooth module. There does not appear to be any A/V cabling in the glovebox.

I am interested in hooking up an iPod or iPhone to the audio system for direct playback. I am less interested in control of the device. I really wanted to avoid an FM solution or using the analog Aux interface.

In test driving T&Cs, we tried out one with the very similar-looking RER system which lacked navigation and Bluetooth support. In that one, there was cabling with an iPod dock connector in the glovebox. I did not use that, but I was able to take a standard iPod sync cable, plug it into the RER’s front-panel USB port, and play back audio through the van’s sound system. I thus assumed that audio coming from the USB interface would be handled as I expected, and played back through the sound system. I think I had to set the RER to Aux.

However, I am unable to get iPhone audio playback on the REN sound system. Bluetooth phone functions do work fine, as the van does have the Uconnect module. I am unable to set the input to Aux on the REN; it is greyed out.

The van’s manual seems to indicate that a UCI cable with allow for both audio and device control. I am wondering if that is the case with the REN system, and whether I simply need to add the inexpensive UCI iPod cable. I also wonder if that will magically allow me to use the USB port for audio input as I was able to do on the RER.

The appears to go for about $40. I am wondering if I can install it myself.

Any thoughts or advice? Thanks!

Actually, I hope I got the radio codes correct. I may have reversed them or mis-remembered them, and I don't have our van available to check. In any case, I can verify the capabilities that I listed as available or unavailable, such as USB and Bluetooth/Uconnect and the UCI iPod cable in the glovebox.

I'm hopeful that the Bluetooth/Uconnect interface is not mutually exclusive with the UCI iPod cable.